Rylie Lyon has big shoes to fill. Not only is her mother Nanci the operator of Bear Trail Lodge and the holder of multiple angling records, but her father Heath is also considered one of the deans of the Naknek River guiding fraternity. She was raised in the town of King Salmon, population <400, although it swells substantially when the commercial fishermen (and visiting recreational anglers) arrive during the brief summertime period.

I was fortunate to be introduced to Nanci Morris Lyon in early 2019 through a friend-of-a-wife-of-a-friend and a few months later I was on a plane to Alaska for one of the best fishing trips of my life. But for that semi-random meeting, I might not have gone to Alaska the past two summers, nor would I have fallen so deeply in love with the fisheries of the Bristol Bay region.